


The Caretakers

by suitesamba



Series: LWS Challenge 15 Bingo 2 [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 17:23:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2278290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade is confined to bed with a broken ankle and John comes to Mycroft’s to help care for him. Sherlock, still under observation from his injuries in the explosion, comes along to help. Sherlock isn’t really much help, but he sure likes Mycroft’s toys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Caretakers

**Author's Note:**

> For Let's Write Sherlock, Challenge 15, Trope Bingo. Bingo Card 1, SickFic. Follows "Four Man Huddle." This one's really just for fun.

“Look, Sherlock, I realise you don’t want to stay at Mycroft’s.”

“I don’t sleep well away from Baker Street.”

“You don’t sleep well anywhere.”

“Why can’t Lestrade just come to 221B?”

John let out a long breath. “He has a broken leg and we have seventeen steps up.”

“He’d only need to get up the stairs one time. Mycroft can have his minions carry him up.”

“Mycroft has a ground level room for him with an en suite.”

“So?”

“Mycroft has paid help.”

“I have free help.”

John compressed his lips. The homeless network was still a sore subject.

“They’re there when it counts.”

John met Sherlock’s eyes. They stared at each other for a long while. Finally, John looked away.

“I committed to this. I told Mycroft I’d help out the first week, when he’ll need the most help.”

“He could have hired someone. God knows he has the money and the resources.”

“He’s doing this for Greg. So that Greg has someone familiar around while Mycroft’s gone all day. We’re his friends, Sherlock. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you.”

Sherlock, watching London go by through the tinted car window, turned his head again and stared at John, then looked back out his window. “I don’t know that I’ll ever quite get used to the idea of having friends.”

He didn’t turn again, but continued to gaze out the window rather bleakly. John swallowed a lump in his throat. He could never predict what was going to come out of Sherlock’s mouth, but sometimes he said exactly the right thing to make John want to forgive him all his sins.

Sherlock looked away again and stared out the window.

John hoped he was doing the right thing. He had half a mind to make them turn the car around, then phone Mycroft and tell him to hire a nurse.

But then – Greg had been the one to care for Sherlock during the whole ordeal when they were trapped in that basement. Sherlock might not remember too much of it, but John did. And for the first time – ever – he felt indebted to Mycroft. 

He owned him this. He owed _Greg_ this.

It was an odd feeling, and impossible to describe to Sherlock.

ooOoo

Greg was in bed, foot elevated on a stack of pillows, watching football, and from the look on his face, in a bit of pain.

There was a walker beside the bed, crutches against the wall. He had a sick-room portable toilet and a hospital tray, the kind that could be rolled away from the bed. There was a cup of water with a lid and a straw, a full pitcher beside it for refills. He had a basket of pill bottles, three remote controls, his mobile, a tablet, a laptop, an overflowing trash can, some magazines, a couple of mass market crime thrillers, and a silver bell. On the sheet beside him rested a grabbing device – the kind that allowed one to reach unreachable items and catch them up with pinchers. On the bed on his other side sat the wrapper from a Crunchie bar, some orange peels, and an assortment of untouched snacks.

He was dressed in green silk pajama bottoms and a white vest and was freshly shaved. He had at least six pillows in a throne-like arrangement behind his head and shoulders. The table on the far side of the bed held an enormous formal flower arrangement that looked like something the queen might have sent, and a bouquet of balloons, featuring a Mylar monstrosity in the shape of a police baton with “Get Well Soon” emblazoned down the shaft. Resting side by side in front of the floral arrangement were two stuffed bears – one dressed as a Bobby and one in a suit and carrying a brolly.

Sherlock, standing beside John just inside Lestrade’s room, cataloging its contents, seemed mesmerised by the balloons.

“Where does the Yard think you are?” he asked. He walked over to the balloons and tapped the baton with his finger, making it bob about rather obscenely.

“Private rehab facility outside of the city,” Lestrade answered. “Hello, you two.” He glanced at Sherlock. “Can’t believe John dragged you along.”

“Don’t fool yourself – he had no choice. He’s still under observation,” John said. He moved to the end of the bed, trying to ignore the chaos of the sickroom while Sherlock wandered around, picking up one thing after another, seeming to delight in the entropy of this room that seemed like it could not possibly exist inside his brother’s house. 

John examined Greg’s foot, poking at a wet towel on top of it, while Sherlock tried out the remotes. He succeeded in making the ceiling fan revolve at near light speed then activated piped in classical music at concert-hall volume.

John grabbed one of the remotes from Sherlock and threw it in the corner. It hit the wall and fell into pieces.

“Oh darn,” said John. He held up the wet towel.

“What’s this supposed to be?” 

“Ice pack,” muttered Lestrade.

“This isn’t ice.”

“It was when Mycroft left at eight.”

John moved to the bedside and picked up the basket of meds. He riffled through them, then raised an eyebrow and looked at Lestrade.

“He tried to think of everything I might need,” Greg said. 

John glanced around the room and shook his head. 

“My sickroom doesn’t resemble this one in the slightest,” Sherlock said. “John – I don’t believe you love me enough.”

John beaned him with a box of laxatives, then fished out the pain meds and the prescription statins and dumped the rest of the bottles in the top drawer of the bed stand. He shook out two pain pills and handed them to Lestrade, then reached for the water, but Sherlock had the grabber now and had already snatched up the cup and was extending it across the bed.

“You’re a menace, Sherlock,” Lestrade said tiredly, but he looked at least half amused, and John counted that as a win.

Now Sherlock was using the grabber to try to fish John’s wallet out of his trouser pocket. He gave up only when Lestrade switched the telly over to CCTV.

“Oh, Mycroft has all the good channels,” Sherlock said. 

Sherlock and Lestrade watched the passersby on a busy London street for some time, perfectly content to lie there and spy on strangers, and some not-quite-strangers. “Is that Sarah?” John asked. “Hey –wait! That’s the street outside my surgery!”

“Throw me that Double Decker,” Sherlock said, ignoring John. Lestrade dutifully tossed the candy bar his way, but it fell on the floor. Sherlock happily retrieved it with the grabber.

“There’re more where that came from,” Lestrade said.

“You don’t eat candy bars,” John said as Sherlock opened the wrapper and bit into the chocolate.

“Tea, I think, John,” Sherlock said as he chewed. “And the remote, please. Someone’s gone and left your work on the telly.”

“I like this channel,” Lestrade said. But he tossed the remote at Sherlock nonetheless. It hit the arm of the recliner and fell on the floor. Sherlock beamed and extended the grabber.

ooOoo

By six o’clock, John was exhausted. He stretched out on the window seat, clutched a pillow over his head, and fell asleep.

He’d iced Greg’s foot three times, helped him to the toilet twice, doled out more medication, served tea, broken up a number of arguments regarding the television, forcibly removed the surviving remote controls from Sherlock’s hands, and had changed his blog password as Sherlock had broken in – again – and was correcting the “inconsistencies and errors.” Deprived of his fun, Sherlock had taken to arranging the stuffed bears in embarrassing – and sometimes impossible – positions. He’d also managed to stir up a hornet’s nest when he’d answered Greg’s mobile while Greg was being helped to the toilet. Donovan was completely miffed that Sherlock had been invited to visit Lestrade at the ‘private rehab facility’ while she had not.

Sherlock and Lestrade had also devised a drinking game featuring the CCTV feed, but John had refused to supply them with anything stronger than tea. Still, they drank whenever they spotted someone carrying a brolly, and as it was a rainy day, Greg downed a lot of tea and had to be helped to the toilet twice more. 

At six-fifteen, Mycroft, still in his office, switched on the CCTV feed of Greg’s bedroom.

There were broken remote parts, candy wrappers and defunct batteries strewn across the floor. Greg had fallen asleep with an apple core on his stomach. A bag of melting ice was balanced on his ankle. Sherlock, chocolate smeared on the bandage on his head, was sleeping in the recliner clutching the grabber to his chest. John was snoring on the window seat.

The Mycroft bear was hanging from the ceiling fan, bare-arsed and wearing a paper crown. 

He stared at the monitor a good five minutes, mouth open in disbelief. Sherlock woke briefly and snagged the apple core with the grabber, then tossed it at John. It bounced off his leg and rolled under a dresser. He pointed the remote at the ceiling fan and the bear started spinning. Then Sherlock saluted the CCTV camera and went back to sleep.

Mycroft deliberated all of five seconds before picking up the phone to call a professional nursing service. Once the arrangements were made, he called for a car to take John and Sherlock back to Baker Street.

ooOoo

“Well, that was short-lived,” said John as they stood in front of 221B.

Behind him, Sherlock reached out with the purloined grabber and straightened the door knocker.

_Fin_


End file.
